Flashback
by ShiniJekka
Summary: More of a drabble than a piece, Ken reflects back on an afternoon spent with a certain someone.


Flashback 

Another very short Ken POV piece, I believe this was meant to be used in Schism but rapidly fell out of tone with it.  Consider it another exercise in trying to fit inside his head.

Ken x Daisuke

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It was a Wednesday when I realized I had fallen in love.

                School was the usual nightmare of academic: problems requiring solutions that I could no longer claim as simple, classmates who were no longer insects but tormentors, and constant reminders of the downward spiral of every aspect of my performance.  My parents must have supposed the declining grades were another symptom of the 'trauma' I had gone through during my absence, which they all still believed to be some sort of kidnapping.

                If they knew that I had removed myself from this place, maybe they would understand why I was so desperate to do so again.  

                Wormmon had grown wiser, somewhere between losing him and finding him all over again… or maybe I wasn't listening in the first place. Regardless, now he was my rock.  I clung to him, placing my faith, friendship, trust, and sanity, all on this meek little virus-type with a heart that could shame lions.  He had told me, over and over, "The path that's right is usually the hardest", until it was etched into my mind so deeply that even considering it recalls his voice, matching time with the thought, pitch and cadence perfectly.  The easy path would be to run away again.  Have I mentioned my dependence on escapism?  The psychologists warned my parents about the possibility of it, years ago after the death of Osamu.  They mentioned it again, not so long ago after my bedraggled and less-than-glorious return.  Their leagues of nodding experts with closely held medical texts and journals declared steadfastly that there was a chance a boy so young might fabricate his own world, in order to better deal with the harshness of the real one presented to him.

                I often wondered if anyone else could feel the palpable irony there.

                I put up such a wonderful demeanor of a successful, untroubled, perfect child that my parents soon discarded the shrink's warnings, knowing their son to be stronger than that.  I wasn't.  I couldn't even face the fact that I had run away far further than any person could ever guess at.

                Except one.

                On that particular Wednesday upon which I realized I'd fallen in love, I was derailed from my trudge home by one exceptionally formidable opponent by the name of Motomiya Daisuke.  Daisuke always had this ridiculous determination to make me smile, and would never settle for one of my patented and engineered false grins.  He could spot them a mile away, usually showing his affront at my 'lie' with a swift whap upside my head.  How could a fake smile be a lie, I would grumble, rubbing at the struck spot under my hair, and he would snort with derision and say something to the effect of 'the lie being all in my eyes'.

                I thought he was a madman.

                Perhaps that's why we were perfect for each other.

                Daisuke, having interposed himself in my line of travel, was waiting for me to notice him.  Of course I did.  I always did.  He was more intent than usual, that time, lips pressed to a thin line, dark eyes darting this way and that, like he was searching along the perimeter of the world for some threat only he knew of.  He didn't ask how my day was for a full five minutes later than in his usual conversation.  I was starting to feel something akin to worry.

                "Fine," I replied to his question following my usual script.  "It's over, at least."

                And to that, silence.  We walked together, and I found myself stealing glances, peering from the side, memorizing the way light would rebound from his hair and shift over his eyes, the way he would rub his nose every so often, and at the hint of color that was starting to bloom over his cheekbones.

                "Are you feeling alright?"  I asked finally, stopping on the sidewalk.  I didn't think he was ill; somehow I think I would have known if he were.  But it wasn't like my Daisuke to be so … restrained.

                Nor was it like myself to think of him as 'my' Daisuke.  That was a trend I had been noticing in my thoughts for the past few weeks, and one I would approach with a great deal of trepidation.  I would poke at it from afar, like prodding at a slumbering, unknown beast to see if it would rouse, what it was, and what it could possibly want with me.  The portion of myself that once was a genius had identified the feeling already, catalogued it, and set it aside without bothering to reveal the secret to me.

                Daisuke noticed I'd stopped walking, and ceased his steps as well, turning to look at me.  

                "Are you feeling alright?" I repeated, words coming clipped and clinical.  Overcompensating for a rush of emotion, the genius I used to be remarked in his quiet, fading voice.

                He fidgeted, shuffled a foot, tried to raise his gaze to mine but faltered midway up my chest.  Odd.  Dai had never been shy, not even when I was his worst enemy.  Why should he have trouble starting his senseless ravings now that I was his best friend?

                "Daisuke?"

                The bubble of tension around him popped abruptly; he was all smiles and energy again, the cherry and chocolate hue of his eyes lost the strange overcast and burned brightly.

                "Sorry, I was spacing about something.  Hey, walk you to your apartment!"  He jogged a few steps ahead and then turned, looking back at me expectantly.  I stared for a moment, and then nodded stiffly, pushing my pace to meet his.  

                I liked to walk close to him.  It was like inching nearer to a fire that helped ease a vicious chill.  He told ridiculous stories as he walked (sometimes next to me, sometimes ahead and backward to keep an eye on my reactions), and gesticulated wildly to match with the words.  He regaled me of tales of lunchtime adventure, of Takeru's latest dating blunder, of how Miyako blushed red as a robin when an older boy bumped into her chair and apologized.  I smirked bemusedly when he told me how Iori had matter-of-factly stated the ingredients in a tube of yogurt while the others read along, shocked.  When he was out of stories about the other Digidestined, he moved on to his sister, scoffing at the pair of boots she'd bought and nearly crying with mirth when he recalled to me how his parents had forbade her to wear them until she'd grown another half decade.  

                All the while, I watched him, admired the life inside him, and wondered what it was about him that made me want to be a better person than I was.  Somewhere just inside the town border of Tamachi, a curious idea grabbed hold of me and refused to let go.

                The slumbering, unidentifiable behemoth that'd been shadowing my thoughts for the past few weeks had woken with a start, grabbed me by the shoulders, and stared me in the face.  I had no choice but to stare back, and see it for what it was.

                It was the vision of Daisuke, walking in the sunlight and laughing; thawing away the block of ice I had submerged myself in after the event of the Kaiser.  It was the constant hum of his voice.  It was the 'my' to 'my Daisuke'.  It was the terrifying certainty of what life would be like without his presence.  

                "So then I said to Taichi that I would rather be - … Ken?"  He paused in his backward-walking story-telling extravaganza and tilted his head toward me.  "Something up?"

                My heart was thundering in my ears, fast and frantic like a bird beating itself against the walls of its cage.  Daisuke raised his hand to his own chest as a shadow of confusion slid over his face.  His pulse must have been doing the same staccato as mine; I wondered if he knew why.

                "What…?" he started to ask, his voice suddenly quiet like honey.  He looked up at me, eyes wide and wondering.  Did he have the hitch in his breath as I did?  Was he lightheaded, giddy?  Was he wondering about the grin that was spreading over my face?  I couldn't remember the last time I grinned out of anything but sadism.  

                "Daisuke," I laughed, dropping my schoolbag. My voice sounded like someone else's, and I realized how long it had really been since I'd laughed… and never like this.  He stood and stared as I simply stood there, holding my sides, laughing at it all.  "Daisuke," I repeated, finally tasting the name for all that it really was.

                "Um.. Ken… are you having a breakdown or something?" he asked slowly, shifting a foot on the path.  "Cos we're still kinda far from your place and I don't know what to do in case of breakdowns..."

                "No, no, no," I reassured, trying to wrest control over the mirth welling up over me from somewhere inside.  The ice had melted faster than I had ever thought possible, I was floating, swimming, drowning in it.  "I understand it now," I told him, standing in the middle of the sidewalk, laughing like a lunatic in the most perfect moment of stillness and clarity I had ever known.  "Daisuke, I get it!"

                "Get … what?"

                "Daisuke.  _Daisuke.  Dai suki_.  I** love** you."

                His eyes widened, impossibly large, and the blossom of his smile was beauty epitomized.

                The memory ends there, somehow, though I know he walked me home and we laughed at ourselves for the remainder of the trip, and I have the tactile memory of his fingers sneaking into mine as we neared my apartment.  None of it is so clear as those moments of revelation, however.  Someday I'll ask him when he started to feel for me, or when he knew what it meant, or how long he'd been waiting for me to just wake up to it.  Someday I'll ask him those things.

                For now, I'm more than content to just continue repeating myself.  

                "I love you".  

                And he smiles.


End file.
